boundless spirits

so cause of that here’s my twit: twitter.com/Viero223

A couple years ago a friend and I designed a character named Darya who was to be a deceased spirit or ghost of sorts. Although we worked a ton on the character, one area we didn’t visit a ton was her backstory and death. I decided to revisit the character; this 2,400 word short story covers Darya’s final hours.

Hope you lot enjoy it! It’s been some time since I last wrote anything of length, if you have any comments or feedback on this I’d love to hear it!

    ℙℝ𝕆𝕄ℙ𝕋

Wei didn’t come to Purgatory much. His job almost always kept him tied to Earth. But occasionally, he had some off-time to spend - which wasn’t very long at all, but it was there nonetheless - in otherworldly realms, usually Purgatory or Hell. However, that was still usually just spent waiting for his next assignment.

Wei was sitting on a bench on one of the quieter waiting floors of Purgatory, reading a book. Most of the activity was concentrated 2 or 3 floors below him. This floor was usually only used for when there was an overflow, providing a perfect place to sit quietly for a while.

Soon after however, another soul, who appeared to be completely unaware of him at first, sat down a few seats away from him. When the other finally noticed him, Wei could see him glance over towards him out of the corner of his eye, focusing mainly on his scythe. Wei chuckled quietly, even in a place where people like him aren’t too uncommon of a sight he still received weird looks.

He tries to make his glance-over discreet, not finding much humor in being caught staring. He, himself, always felt incredibly nervous… self-conscious, even, whenever he caught someone looking at him. 

“No worries, you are not the first. I know I am not a very common sight.” Wei reassured him.

He hadn’t thought of it before, but considering how he was near Purgatory and this character seemed especially timid, it crossed Wei’s mind that this was probably a recently deceased.

Busy listening to Wei discussing places he’d love to go to or had been to before, the girl didn’t focus on any changes. only looking at him and nodding. When he started asking her about details on where she would want to go, her grin faltered somewhat however and she swallowed before answering:

“Well the places I would want to go to are probably silly. Like, one day I want to see the Northern lights with my own eyes, even though I’d freeze to death, ehehe… Aaand it’s a little childish maybe, but I also want to go to Disneyworld sometime! I heard that place is pretty magical as well and will bring a smile to anyone’s face. Speaking of magical– Well I heard there’s this ‘Happy Magic Water Park’ or something in China actually which is huuuuge and it looks absolutely amazing; like you’re actually underwater, and there’s all these beautiful decorations and themed rides and slides, and… I kinda can’t swim too well so that’s probably not gonna work out. But I want to see it.

As for places in Europe; well it probably has the most beautiful places I’d love to see with my own eyes, but I’m a little nervous about visiting there since I don’t even know any of the languages. I’d probably get laughed at. Plus a friend of mine warned me about the streetmerchants there who will harrass tourists! That sounds scary too…”

“Don’t worry, I would not call those absurd.” Wei remarked. “I have actually seen the Northern Lights before, during my trip to Russia. It is an absolutely beautiful sight in person. I do not think I can comment on anything else though since I have not been to them myself - although, I know there is a Disneyland in Hong Kong.”

Okay, maybe some of her answers were a little childish. But Wei didn’t mind, even if they were, it sounded like these were place she genuinely wanted to visit.

Wei was sitting on a bench on one of the quieter waiting floors of Purgatory, reading a book. Most of the activity was concentrated 2 or 3 floors below him. This floor was usually only used for when there was an overflow, providing a perfect place to sit quietly for a while.

Hey, folx… I’m in some trouble.

I’m a college freshman attending an art school with some intensive studio hours and other assignments that have been putting strain on my effort in finding a job. I did not get a job with my school’s work study program and finding the time to commute elsewhere for a job would interrupt my ability to maintain the grades I’m getting. I’m keeping my scholarships with an above-B average, my meals and housing for this semester are paid for, but to make many of my projects, supplies are needed that cannot be provided for me and I’m struggling to keep myself afloat right now… I just need some help.

Pricing:

Bust drawing of one subject; $3.00 USD

Waist-up drawing of one subject: $4.00 USD

Full body drawing of one subject: $5.00 USD

For more than one subject, if you want two subjects featured in one piece (interacting somehow), just multiply the price of the first subject by the number of total subjects. If you want one, for example, full body subject and another subject drawn only as a bust, just add the individual prices. Email me if you want me to calculate the total price for you (contact information at the bottom of this post).

Dos and Don’ts:

I will draw…

Original characters (I love OCs so much you don’t understand…)

Characters from something you like (video game, movie, television show, etc.)

Animals and plants!

Mythical creatures and characters that feature non-human anatomy (different from anthro art or furries) such as centaurs, merpeople, and 

Sexual NSFW content with the exception of violence and gore. Sexual themes are alright with me!

I will not draw…

Anthro/furries - and this is just because I haven’t mastered something like this in the slightest, I want to be able to produce good work for you and if I’m too busy trying to learn and teach myself how to draw your subject, that takes away from the time I could be spending drawing your piece!

NSFW that features violence or gore. You can negotiate something with me if you think it isn’t considered gorey. I only won’t draw this, again, because it’s difficult to draw blood with the medium I’m working with for these commissions.

Cis-swapped ‘genderbent’ characters. This is an ethical no-no. Trans-headcanoned characters are a-ok, just please do not ask me to draw a character that is canonically one gender as a different gender with the sole implication that this character has different sex characteristics. For example, I’m not going to draw you Marshall Lee from the genderbent Adventure Time spinoff. I will not draw a ‘female’ version of a character that is canonically male, nonbinary, or intersex if you want me to draw this character with long hair and ‘female’ characteristics. It’s a no-go!

Steps:

Email me with instructions; characters, number of subjects, poses, expressions, and what size option you’ve selected (bust, waist-up, or full body).

Please attach reference images! Even if what you want me to draw for you can be found doing a Google Image search, please attach an image that represents, exactly, what you want me to see of your subject(s).

If you are commissioning an original character, please be as descriptive as you possibly can appearance-wise if you don’t have any reference image(s).

Once I’ve drawn a preliminary sketch, I’ll take a picture and show you before getting the green light from you, as the customer, to proceed to line and color the work.

Once everything is done and I’ve sent you a final product, it’s your responsibility to send me your payment via PayPal if you have not already. Send all payment (via PayPal) to [email protected].

Contact:

[email protected] [email protected]

I decided to include a snipped of my bank account balance below. I know there are people out there who will probably pass this up because they think other people will pick up their slack, that I probably have too much on my plate, but I need as much help as I can get. Please. If you can commission me and you like my work, I encourage you to think about commissioning me. I need help and I’ll give you art you’ll love. I don’t have any way of maintaining a job that would give me a steady income… please help…

“I am surprised how more open things look in America, the cities and such things are a lot more dense back home.” Wei commented. “I almost prefer it actually, taking a trip to America was a nice break from it.”

Even though he’d visited all sorts of places while working, he always found the more sparse cities and small towns he visited to be the most interesting. He always felt a little foreign to them, having lived in a large city his entire actual life.

Probably in her town she was one of the few people actually making a commotion. The majority of the townsfolk knew of the strange girl who showed up out of nowhere one day, roamed their streets for a while and caused a ruckus when she would snatch food and money in order to survive. Somehow she’d always avoided authorities, and people gave up when she finally found a cabin to live in and started doing odd jobs for her money instead.

“If you want fun events, this town’s not the place to be. At most you’ll encounter some public lectures from the bookreading club which are open for anyone to attend, and they have a playgarden for the kids where they sometimes host games for them to play. And every Thursday there’s a a market where people with a permit sell stuff at their stands. That’s– about it. Hong Kong sounds a lot more exciting, even Los Angeles does…

For a story he was pretty much concocting on the spot, this was working pretty well. He could almost even say he was proud of himself for it, he was surprised how well this was going considering some of his previous run-ins with living people who stuck around to talk in the past.

Photograph by mcooper_bb

“Yep, I live here!” she answered Wei when he tried to keep the conversation going. “A little up ahead actually, at the edge of the town where the forest starts. Back when I was younger I lived in the nearest town with my mother, but then I came here to live on my own. Always been from around the area though.”

She was pretty used to all the greenery and quietness in this village, and not easily bored even if this place wasn’t nearly as advanced as some of the bigger cities.

“I am surprised how more open things look in America, the cities and such things are a lot more dense back home.” Wei commented. “I almost prefer it actually, taking a trip to America was a nice break from it.”

Even though he’d visited all sorts of places while working, he always found the more sparse cities and small towns he visited to be the most interesting. He always felt a little foreign to them, having lived in a large city his entire actual life.

When he introduced himself to her, that sealed the deal that he didn’t mind her and she responded with: “Nice to meet you as well, Wei. That’s a pretty awesome name you got, I like it a lot. As for me, I’m… uhm… Ace. Yeah, call me Ace.”

She felt a little bad for not giving him her real name when he was opening up to her. Then again she had forsaken that name long ago, Ace was as good as her true name rather than a nickname by now. Besides, everyone knew her by it, so it would be easier if Wei did, too.

Ace, what an unusual name. He imagined it was a nickname, probably, and almost wanted to ask her about it. However she seemed to hesitate a little when she brought up her name, so he decided against it. There was probably some reason for it.